8
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, the researcher examines some theories that support this research. There will be two major sections of this chapter: the theoretical
description and theoretical framework. The theoretical description provides a detailed discussion related to the research. The theoretical framework discusses a
framework based on the theoretical description.
A. Theoretical Description
The theoretical description involves the discussion about pronunciation acquisition, mother tongue interference in the foreign language, description and
classification of English speech sounds, a brief overview of hearing-speech defect, and misarticulation.
1. Pronunciation Acquisition
In language learning, the role of pronunciation is significant. Communication cannot be made if there is no intelligibility between the speaker
and the listener. To be intelligible, someone has to be able to pronounce well. Kenworthy, 1997: 13 mentions that intelligibility means the state of being
understood by the listener at a given time in a given situation. The speaker needs to be intelligible so that he can communicate.
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Kenworthy points out that if teachers set intelligibility as the goal rather than native-like pronunciation, it means learners are aiming for pronunciation
which is “close enough”. Hence, intelligibility is equal to understandability. The more words a listener is able to identify, the more intelligible the speaker is.
Communication involves more than simply sending a set of well-produced sounds into the air at the listener. Teachers should include pronunciation practice
in their class in order to develop student’s competence. Teaching pronunciation is very important because if a non native speaker has a very bad pronunciation, he or
she will not able to communicate orally no matter how good his or her control of
the grammar and vocabulary of the target language might be.
2. Mother Tongue Interference in the Foreign Language
Brown 1987:38 states “we have all observed children acquiring their first language easy and well, yet the learning of a foreign language often meets with
great difficulty and sometimes failure”. From this statement it can be seen that it is more difficult to learn a new language than to acquire the first language. It
happens because when someone learns a new language, his or her first language will interfere with new language and this will hinder the success of the new
language learning process. However, it can also be seen that not all errors in the foreign language
come from the interference of the first language. It is true that the first language can affect the process of foreign language acquisition. It can happen that the
learner does not transfer all the elements of the first language into the foreign
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
language. He may only avoid using the rules that are absent in his first language when he speaks the foreign language.
How the mother tongue influences the target language can be seen in Lado’s theory: 1957: 11:
a. Location and description of segmental problems. Does the native language have a phonetically similar phoneme? Experience shows that when the
foreign language uses a phoneme which does not exist in the learner’s native language, he will substitute it with some other phoneme from his native stock
and the consequences are that the learner will have the problem in hearing as well as producing the new phoneme.
b. Difficulty in pronouncing a phoneme versus difficulty in pronouncing a sequence. A sequence having one of the phonemes of the foreign language
that cannot be found in the native language could be listed as a problem sequence.
c. Difficulty in pronouncing a word versus difficulty in pronouncing a phoneme or a phoneme sequence. Sometimes a student mispronounces a word although
he has mastered the phonemes and sequences involved. This happens because he does not know how to pronounce that word.
d. Problems of spelling pronunciation. Student may mispronounce words because of the influences from the writing system. When both the foreign
language and the native language use the same alphabets, the problem could be laid in the same symbol that might represent two different sounds in the
two languages. In such case the student tends to transfer the native language
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
symbolization to the foreign language. The other possibility is when the symbol in one word that represents one sound turns out to represent a
different sound in another word. e. Pronunciation problems with words that show similarity in two languages.
Since words having similarity in the form in two languages show patterns of correspondences between the foreign language and the native one, the
student’s mispronunciations will often be predictable in terms of those patterns.
f. Unpredictable alternation between two potential substitutions. The Indonesian
language lacks the phoneme [ θ] that might approximate English [θ] as in
think. The result is that Indonesian learners may substitute it with [s] or [t].
The reason for this is that the individual tends to transfer the sound system of his mother tongue.
3. Description and Classification of English Speech Sounds
Kategori